San Francisco State University

PWR major Skye Mcmullen and Bridget Gelms have collaborated (along with two colleagues from Missouri State and Central Oklahoma University) on a publication for the academic journal Writing Spaces. Titled "A Guide to Rhetorically Navigating (or Resisting!) Professional Expectations," this piece offers perspectives from two writing studies students, including Skye, currently navigating professional expectations that are challenging and oftentimes discriminatory, identifying the rhetorical strategies they use to navigate these environments. It will be published Fall 2025—congratulations, Skye! 

Our very own PWR graduate Jermelyn Genove-Mangibin did such an amazing job in her role as a copy editor at XPress Magazine, they requested that another PWR student fill her shoes—congratulations to Tabby Ayuby for her new position as copy editor at the magazine for AY 25-26! 

I am ecstatic to have been selected as the recipient of the 2024-25 Undergraduate Honors Award. Having my academic performance at San Francisco State University acknowledged and thus rewarded by the English Language and Literature Department’s faculty and staff is both humbling and a tremendous honor. I am doubly honored to have been nominated for the Undergraduate Hood within the College of Liberal and Creative Arts along with those of my peers. In anticipation of San Francisco State University’s 124th Commencement Ceremony, I am equally excited for the English Department graduation ceremony on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, and the Undergraduate Honors Convocation on Thursday, May 22, 2025. Having been invited, I am delighted to speak at the department graduation ceremony as the undergraduate honoree. Many thanks to the English Department’s chair, faculty, and staff for their kind consideration, thoughtful recognition, and unsparing support. Receiving the Undergraduate Honors Award is an incredible privilege and truly means a great deal–I am sincerely humbled.

Warmly,

Tadeo M. Macon

“I presented at the graduate conference – name of the paper was 'From Weal to Woe in the Great Laboratory: The Victorian Kitchen as an Imperial Space in Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management.'” 

Roselie Roman, an active senior in our PWR program, is one of our Fall 2024 WIllie L. Brown fellows! Currently her work has taken her to the SF Human Rights Commission and she plans to pursue a future career as a Lecturer and English professor! We’re thrilled to see Roselie recognized for her hard work this semester! The full profile of Roselie, as well as other fellows this Fall, can be found on the School of Public Affairs & Civic Engagement website. 

Over 100 BA Majors across our undergraduate programs made the Fall 2024 Dean’s List! Thank you to the faculty, advisors, and coordinators for supporting these students as they did their best! 

MA Linguistics student Pati Shojaee recently won the Student Research Competition held at Cal Poly Humboldt! Her essay, "From Hollywood and Beyond: How Meaning is Made of Gaslighting in Online Discourse", is an analysis of the term “gaslighting” under the context of how it is defined and debated by Reddit users, “...revealing how online discourse shapes public understanding of psychological abuse and power.” Congratulations to Pati for this accomplishment! 

MA TESOL student Alejandra Robles recently received an invitation to serve in Vietnam as an English Education TEFL volunteer with the Peace Corps. Starting in October, she will spend 27 months co-teaching high schoolers alongside local Vietnamese counterparts to improve English education in provinces outside of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. Additionally, as part of her service, she will work with the local community members to establish English camps, conversation clubs for students in the community, and teacher training workshops to share and incorporate new teaching practices and ideas in the English classroom. With the Peace Corps having been recently established in Vietnam, her cohort will be the fourth cohort of Peace Corps volunteers in Vietnam.  

Bio: Alejandra Robles is an MA TESOL alumnus who graduated this Spring 2025. She has previous experience across various organizations at SF State, including working as a reading/writing/oral communications tutor at the Tutoring and Academic Support Center, working as an embedded tutor with the CMS program in ENG 201/202, and working as a graduate teaching associate with the College of Professional and Global Education teaching her own ENG 201, 202 and 209 classes. She has also worked closely with the American Language Institute as a tutorial leader, conversation partner and excursion leader for various short-term study abroad programs. Her academic interests include learning about how to promote and encourage reading and writing in the first-year classroom, how students’ culture and stories can be expressed and shared in their writing, and pragmatics. In her free time, she enjoys language learning, listening to music, going to concerts, and traveling. 

Two PWR students, Skye Mcmullen and Tabby Ayuby, served as new editors of Sutro magazine this semester under the guidance of Bridget Gelms, and the team decided to use the opportunity to edit an issue that takes readers back through the archives of Sutro since its inaugural issue from 2017 to highlight standout pieces that represent SFSU students through the years and the issues they care about. After selecting an assortment of pieces, Skye and Tabby reached out to original authors—some still here at SFSU and some now alumni—to interview them and capture reflections about how it feels to revisit their formerly published work. With an overwhelming amount of authors willing to participate in the project, the issue has morphed into something larger than expected. Part revival and part reflection, the 2025 issue proves to be an important piece of documentation about the writing students do here at SF State and how they see themselves as writers. The issue is almost ready for your eyes, but we plan to hard launch at the start of the Fall semester, so be on the lookout for it then! 

Gabriela Pires presented at the Dickens Universe at UC Santa Cruz, alongside Sara Hackenberg. 

This past year, we held the 14th and 15th bi-annual graduate student conferences!

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Congratulations to all the students who presented their thought-provoking research:

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15th Bi-Annual English Department Graduate Student Conference (May 9th, 2025) Presenters: Gurleen Babra, Cody Fisher, Annemarie Sheehan Fortier, Samuel Grant, Malleeswari Jagabattuni, Gabriela Pires, Alejandra Robles, Elan Rodriguez, Mele Thomas, Efi Turnip, Christine Xiong, Maria Yoneyama, Jas Zeng, and Jackie Zhen. 

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14th Bi-Annual English Department Graduate Student Conference (December 6, 2024) Presenters: Noha Almutairi, Ariana Genesis Chavez, Houxue An, Maxwell Goodwin, Hannah Gradowski, Jackson Cato Harris, Raz Parker, Filiberto Perez, and Cassia Suzanne Reddig.

MA English student Pati Shoajee earned first place in the Humanities and Letter Discipline with her presentation; “From Hollywood and Beyond: How Meaning is Made of Gaslighting in Online Discourse”. 

The first Spring issue of Xpress Magazine was published this week! This student-led journal covers life on campus and is published throughout each academic semester. This issue is available to read now on their website. We’d like to offer our congratulations to the student staff responsible for their work and a special shout out to Jermelyn Genove-Mangbin, one of our fantastic student assistants who works as the Copy Editor for Xpress Magazine! 

An alumnus of the English Education program, Aidan Murtagh, was accepted to the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education as a graduate student! He’ll be teaching the 6th and 7th grade at Bishop Dunne Catholic School! Aidan was kind enough to provide his thoughts about this exciting opportunity: 

"I am very excited to bring the knowledge, skills, and abilities I've acquired from my SF State English Education curriculum to my students as a Catholic middle school English teacher. I cannot wait to inspire the next generation of learners and leaders, as so many of my teachers did for me." 

We wish Aidan the best of luck with his studies and as a teacher! 

Jermelyn has worked with us for two academic years and will be graduating from our Professional Writing & Rhetoric program next week! We want to thank for all of her work with us, so many events were possible thanks to her help making them a reality! We’re sad to see her go, but we’re excited to see her walk the stage next week! Congrats Jermelyn and thanks for a wonderful two years! 

Malleeswari Jagabattuni graduated from SF State after having earned an MA in both TESOL and Linguistics. Now she takes her next step in the PhD program of the University of Buffalo! MJ was kind enough to write about feelings about this new chapter of her life, which we’ve included in full below: 

“I am very excited to start the PhD program at UB! I am very lucky to have received training in cognitive linguistic theories which have prepared me for the program at UB. Also, I feel fortunate to have had the research and conference opportunities I did with the Ling program which helped me get into the program. I am so grateful to the faculty who have helped me along the way. I really look forward to further pursuing my research interests in the syntax-semantics interface and typology at UB!”